If I Tried
by likegallows
Summary: The first time he heard the song the notes drifted on the air, words lost to the crackling of the campfire and the enthusiastic chatter of the e war with Gaea is over but there are still wars to be fought. Many of them are internal. To Macklemore's Same Love.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Percy Jackson or Same Love. Thanks to Rick & Macklemore.

**AN:** So I got it in my head that there is just so much that Nico missed out in the way of pop culture and music. And listening to one of my favourite songs of the moment I wondered how Nico would react and how it might put things in perspective.

**Description:** The first time he heard the song the notes drifted on the air, words lost to the crackling of the campfire and the enthusiastic chatter of the war with Gaea is over but there are still wars to be fought. Many of them are internal. To Macklemore's _**Same Love**_.

* * *

The first time he heard the song the notes drifted on the air, words lost to the crackling of the campfire and the enthusiastic chatter of the campers. Crickets sang in the night and they raised their cups clanking them together in a toast— to those who had fought bravely, to those who had made it back, and to those who never would.

The fire had been a unique combination fluxing between low and dark as someone's heart clenched remembering exactly who was missing. A minute later it would shoot up, a rainbow of warmth another stirring memory and another embrace from campers reunited with someone they weren't too sure they would see again.

The first time he heard the song, he watched from the shadows staying only to watch over everyone as he always did. Make sure everyone was alright— or as alright as anyone expected. He was wrapped in shadows, pulling them tighter, playing with the thought of letting them cwtch him close until he disappeared into them allowing them to make the decision: who, what, where. They could make the choice, but the piano was soothing and even without the words, he thought to himself that he might have missed the last seventy or so years of music, but he really enjoyed the trumpets in the background and maybe he would have liked it a little louder.

Maybe if he listened long enough he might even feel something for a change. It'd been so long since he'd felt anything.

Before he could blur into nothing, a certain green eyed boy caught his gaze and flashed him a smile.

"Oh no you don't. No more impersonating the dark. We're going to get you a massive slice of cake— you've earned at least that."

He'd attempted to shrug off the hand that lead him along, but not so hard that he broke free.

The war with Gaea was over but sleep was no less dangerous; the things that came at night were more abhorrent than acts he'd truly witnessed. Nico spent most of the nights diffusing in and out of shadows around camp playing hide and go seek with the harpies— they never quite caught him but damned if they tried. Sometimes his heart would even race, beating fast enough so he could actually feel its use; he liked that. Feeling something. Even if it was only physical.

The second time he heard the song was on a night he was feeling particularly adventurous— no, wait, ballsy, as he Percy was now bridging any gaps in his education with appropriate vocabulary for someone his age because Nico was different enough without slipping in some Italian or linguistically dead phrase. The point of the game was to let the harpies get closer and closer, a twisted version of Mother, May I? where there was no question of how many flaps forward they got but Nico waited to dissolve into the dark the fraction of a second before they grabbed at him. The very very very last second, the heart beat right before there would be no more heart beat, the stillness of breath before the last exhale… Only the son of Hades pushed it just a little too far.

A claw sunk into his shoulder and he bit his tongue to keep from yelling out. Nico disappeared into the blackness and found himself stepping out of the shadows of the fountain in Percy's cabin. The scent of the sea immediately filled his nostrils and he pitched forward catching himself on the edge.

"Holy shit," he mumbled to himself attempting to get the ground beneath his feet all the while his heart was very vocal in attempting to escape from his chest.

"What the—"

"Oh shit. Sorry!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Uhm… a game of tag with harpies?"

"Why were you playing tag with the harpies?"

"Why not? It's really useful for cultivating successive shadow travelling. I'm getting more and more accurate… except when I can't concentrate and that's sort of hard when the harpies are actually attached to you. Pretty lucky she didn't come with me! And I wasn't going to sleep anyway," he babbled on.

And as it turned out, Percy understood the whole not sleeping thing. Except for the part about playing with the harpies— even he thought that was pretty dumb and when the sea prince thought something was pretty stupid, Nico had to concede it was the world's least smart idea. Like, ever.

The second time he heard the song, Percy had asked him if he wanted to stay, to hell with the camp rules. They weren't really made with demigods who'd been to Tartarus in mind or they wouldn't be so stringent when it came to night time escapades. Music helped him at night because it filled the silence and turned it into something pleasant; Tartarus was a void and music could fill even the darkest corners of the room.

It helped.

The keys tinkled out and Nico smiled at the opening. There was so much music he tried to cram into his brain and some of it he just didn't understand— don't get him wrong, he might like it, but he just didn't understand it like all that wubwubwub dance shit? It got the blood pumping but whether or not it was _actually _music? the jury was still out— so it was pleasant.

"I think I heard this once," he mumbled sprawled out on the bed next to the other boy. He laid with his head at the end of the bed, feet up by the pillow, shoes long since lost to the floor. Socked feet bobbed back and forth.

Percy lay with his head on the pillow at the opposite end.

The son of Poseidon chattered on about something but the words fell to the floor for all the good they did. Nico was frozen where he lay, fingers clutching at the sheets on the bed until his knuckles were white. His lungs couldn't find any oxygen in the air so they stilled until his vision was fuzzy and his brain felt swathed in cotton.

He pushed himself up off the bed and crawled over the older boy, careful not to touch him. That was the most important thing: to get off the bed and across the bed without grazing any part of him. The Ghost King wasn't positive the other wouldn't crumble into dust if any part of them met.

Still, there wasn't air.

Something inside his chest twisted.

Fingers clutched at the side of the fountain and it became very important that he unscrew those dark eyes and just look. Blurry beneath him was the reflection, dark and distorted, of a boy. Just a boy. Not a monster. Not something sick or wrong or disgusting. Not something to be ashamed of. Just a boy with ivory curls falling to his shoulders, violets blooming beneath his eyes brown as the earth he came from. Just a boy, not the kind of thing heroes vanquished.

Something inside his chest stirred as the trumpets sounded and the piano danced inside his bones. Water filled his eyes and his shoulders shook; nothing was steady. Not the ground or his head or his heart or his hands.

"Are you okay?"

He was standing right behind him, close enough to feel his warmth.

"It's just…" Sucking on his bottom lip, he turned around and tilted his head up, only slightly, to face Percy. The words got stuck in his throat.

"I know. I forget sometimes, it must be really different for you…"

"No! No, no… it's really beautiful, Percy. It's—" his fingers clutched at his chest over his heart. Was there a word to verbalise exactly how tantamount it was? Failing all else, he clawed at his shirt over his heart, holding the fabric in his hand like it was something more.

"It's just you?" They were uncertain but green eyes sough out brown ones, finding and fixing on them when they finally raised.

"Yeah. It's just me."

The arms that wrapped around him were as engulfing as the tide, tugging him close but not under. Succumbing didn't mean drowning— for the first time since he was ten Nico's head was above water and his heart felt whole.


End file.
